


Bedridden

by glim



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-15
Updated: 2010-05-15
Packaged: 2017-10-09 11:28:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/86815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glim/pseuds/glim
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin reads to Arthur.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bedridden

Spring had nearly ended when the rains came. Cold, lashing rains that beat against the castle walls and faded the difference between morning, day, and evening into a wash of dull grey. Fires that had been extinguished during the couple weeks of warm weather in Camelot had to be re-lit and Merlin was convinced, despite the warmth of the fires, that the damp would never dry out of his boots or his jacket.

His only saving grace was that, two days after the heavy rain started, Arthur had come down with a cold. After two more days - days, which, being Arthur and therefore being stubborn and sort of stupid, he'd spent out at the tilt yards even though he was already sniffling and coughing - he'd been ordered to keep to his bed. Which, perhaps, wasn't as much saving grace as Merlin could've done with since it meant the time he would've spent attending Arthur at the lists and seeing to his armor was spent fussing at Arthur.

Who, not unpredictably, turned out to be the least gracious patient ever. He didn't actually seem to believe that he was ill enough to be bedridden, never mind how he spent most of the time while Gaius was examining him coughing, sneezing, and generally not able to help being quite feverish and ill.

At least he slept through the morning; a bit restlessly, but not as poorly as the night before, and whatever curative Gaius prepared for him seemed to help. He only woke up once or twice after Merlin gave him the tonic instead of breakfast and resigned himself more easily to Merlin fussing after him than Gaius, somewhat surprisingly.

Merlin came to discover that spending the morning listening to the rain fall outside the castle and making enough effort to do chores around Arthur's room to make it appear as if he'd accomplished something wasn't such a bad thing. Arthur's chambers were warm and dry, and Arthur wasn't so horrible when he was half-asleep and almost compliant, letting Merlin hand him goblets of warm, watered honey wine and stroke his hair back off his forehead. When he woke around midday, Merlin let Arthur settle himself against the pillows and blink the bleariness from his eyes before coming to sit by him on the bed with more wine and medicine.

"How are you feeling?"

"Miserable. And _bored_. Mostly miserable, though," Arthur admitted, and tugged the blankets higher up over his chest after Merlin smoothed them.

He certainly looked miserable, pale and shadow-eyed, and sounded worse, with his voice roughed up from the cough and congestion that had plagued him ever since he started coming down ill.

"You just woke up. You can't possibly be bored yet."

"I'm preemptively bored. I can't sit in bed all day and do nothing."

"We could play chess." Merlin took up the goblet of hot, watered wine from the bedside table and added a spoonful of the tonic. "Here. You need to drink more."

Arthur sniffled in reply. "I'm not teaching you how to play chess."

"We've played before. Maybe you're too ill to remember?"

"I'm not teaching you _again_, then. Because you certainly didn't learn last time. I ended up playing myself and you fell asleep."

That, Merlin didn't point out, wasn't his fault. There'd been a good amount of mead drunk before that game had started and Arthur must really _like_ chess, because they'd stopped the game halfway through to tumble each other into bed. It was the mead that had done Merlin in. And the way Arthur had kept brushing his hands and feet against Merlin's while they played.

"I didn't hear you complaining at the time." Merlin offered the goblet again, used his other hand to stroke Arthur's rumpled hair, and almost laughed at the way Arthur tried to look as if he were resisting the attention.

Arthur finally yielded and took the hot drink after a spasm of coughing and sniffled into the goblet curiously a few times before taking a sip. His face twisted into a grimace at the first swallow, more pain than disgust, and Merlin couldn't help but rest his hand on Arthur's leg to rub gently while he drank down more of the wine.

"The Lady Morgana said she'd come read to you, if you liked."

Arthur grimaced again. "Oh, god. Because that always ends well."

Merlin blinked. Part of him really, really wanted to ask what the story behind that comment was, but a wiser part of him knew that asking Gwen would be the safer route. He suspected he'd get a lot of expatiating from Arthur, and probably a great deal of coughing and the subsequent complaining about how that hurt his throat.

"She threw her book at me last time."

"Can't imagine why, you're such good company, so gracious when you're ill."

Arthur kicked at Merlin from beneath the covers, effectively pushing him off the bed, and nodded toward the collection of books and scrolls on the opposite side of the room. "You'll read to me."

"What. Me?" A glance around the room and one at Arthur answered that question.

"I assume you can read..."

"You _know_ I can read, Arthur."

"So. No problem then. Go on." Nodding in the direction his collection of texts again, Arthur gathered the bedclothes to his chest again and shivered at a lash of wind and rain against the windowpanes.

Merlin cast another glance in the direction of the fire, intense enough to send the flames higher and brighter, and quick enough that Arthur wouldn't notice. He picked the first book up off the table, something large and heavy, and held it up as a distraction just in case it wasn't rapid enough. "This?"

"Yes, Merlin. In my state of cold-ridden misery, I wish for you to read to me from the _grain ledgers_. I'm sure, in your infinite power, you can make them both amusing and captivating."

"Possibly." Well, probably not; he couldn't tell if he had enough magic to make those books entertaining, though he shelved the idea to try for later reference. He pulled out a few more books from Arthur's collection, quickly replaced the ones that were in Latin or some other language he couldn't read without magical aid, and decided on a bestiary. "What about this one?"

Arthur leaned forward in bed and squinted, scrubbed at his eyes, then his nose, and said, "Bring it here. Oh, that's fine, yes." A hint of a smile touched the corner of his mouth and he almost looked pleased when Merlin settled at the foot of the bed.

"Should I just start at the beginning?"

After a moment of thought, Arthur shook his head. "Mythical beasts first, then serpents."

A thumb through the volume demonstrated it was well read; the pages of the two sections Arthur had requested were worn down to softness at the edges. Great expense had been put into the book's production: leather bindings, illustrations colored in ink and gilt, and a fine hand that would take Merlin a few pages to get accustomed to reading. Arthur had scrawled his name on the first verso page and despite the writing being larger and rounder and the ink faded, the signature was instantly recognizable. Imagining Arthur that young was hard, yet, there was something in the way he peered at Merlin sometimes, in the first few bleary moments after they woke up, or, even now, when vulnerability flickered in his eyes and he asked Merlin to come sit up next to him instead of at the foot of the bed, that prevented the image from being impossible.

Merlin got through the bicorn, callitrix, and crocotta, before Arthur, who was reading over his shoulder, told Merlin to flip to random animals and readjust the book so he could see the pictures better. Halfway through the next animal, Arthur's head drooped against Merlin's shoulder and he made a tired, hoarse sound when Merlin stopped reading.

"Are you listening? You might have to defend your castle from this beast someday."

"God help Camelot if you think I can't overcome a _pard_. Keep reading..."

"You're not even listening to me."

"Certainly am. Every word," Arthur mumbled against Merlin's tunic, his face pressed into Merlin's shoulder for a moment before resting his head there once more.

He was asleep within minutes. Merlin turned the pages back to the front of the book to trace his fingers over the letters Arthur had inscribed there years ago and curled up to read the rest of section on his own, with the wind, rain and fire around him, and Arthur, here, next to him on the bed.


End file.
